Hito Steyerl and the work series reshaping digital images

From the AD HOC NEWS Art Desk » Work Series & Retrospective Desk - The editors cover exhibitions, auctions, collections, prizes and artistic positions. Published: June 27, 2026 · Last checked: June 27, 2026, 10:36 PM

Hito Steyerl is a key voice in contemporary art when it comes to the politics of images and data. Her video essays and installations have, over roughly three decades, traced how digital photographs, surveillance feeds and online platforms shape perception and power across global networks. Against this backdrop, her major work groups offer a compact way to understand how she has continually restructured the moving image in the gallery.

Core video series across two decades

One of Hito Steyerl's most widely discussed works is the HD video How Not to Be Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File, first shown in 2013 and later included in MoMA's collection, where it mixes tutorial aesthetics with absurd strategies for disappearing from surveillance.MoMA collection entry The piece takes the form of a didactic video that alternates between straight-to-camera instructions and choreographed performances in a desert test field, turning an institutional resolution chart into a stage for critique.

This work sits within a longer line of essay films, such as Lovely Andrea (2007) and November (2004), which connect archival images, personal history and geopolitical conflict. In November Steyerl follows the image of a deceased friend, a Kurdish fighter, through different forms of circulation, while Lovely Andrea looks at a bondage photograph and its afterlife across media; together they anchor an approach where one image can unfold into a dense map of ideology.

Installation cycles and data environments

Parallel to the films, Hito Steyerl has developed large-scale installations that push video into immersive, screen-filled architectures. The environment Factory of the Sun, commissioned for the German Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale and later acquired in an installation version by MoMA, places viewers on reclining deck chairs in a gridded room, enveloped by a narrative about exploited motion-capture labor and gamified resistance.MoMA article on Factory of the Sun The work's shifting resolution and frenetic montage mirror the instability of digital work and play.

Another strand is formed by installations such as This Is the Future and the multi-part series , which combine screens with algorithmic systems and architectural interventions. Here Steyerl works with simulation models and predictive software, turning gallery spaces into speculative data gardens where visitors encounter forecasts of social and ecological futures generated by machine learning systems. The emphasis lies less on technological novelty than on how prediction encodes bias and control.

The essay form as working method

Across these series, Hito Steyerl consistently uses an essayistic structure where images, text-on-screen and voice-over interact rather than simply illustrate each other. The works often begin from a single object or media file, then expand outward into links with global logistics, military technology and cultural institutions, constructing a chain of associations that viewers must navigate.

This approach is mirrored in her published theoretical writing, including widely cited texts on poor images and circulation, which frame low-resolution, compressed files as both degraded and politically charged. By treating the 'poor image' as a site of struggle over access, reproduction and value, she folds her artistic and theoretical production into one position that directly addresses how art objects move across screens and markets.

Where the artist stands now

Hito Steyerl continues to develop new moving-image installations and essay films while her existing work series remain in active circulation through institutional exhibitions and long-term collection displays.

This article was produced with a.i. support and editorially reviewed. All statements without guarantee; auction results, exhibition dates and awards may change at short notice.